The Journal of Academic Librarianship : Linking course web sites to library collections and services. CDL’s Twitter account, Part 2. In an earlier post , I promised I’d cover our Twitter guidelines and also provide you with some information about how the account is performing. Before I get going, let me remind any readers unfamiliar with Twitter that “following” is a Twitter term for subscribing to the brief broadcasts of information, links, and so forth that Twitter users send, called “tweets.” First up: our guidelines. When we decided that CDL’s central account would follow CDL individuals, there was some concern that we would end up with content like “I’m taking out the trash” or “I just saw the most amazing [fill-in-the-blank]” in CDL’s Twitter stream.
So, we agreed that a very small number of guidelines would be useful. We read the LowriderLibrarian post about using Twitter for organizations, and we drew inspiration, if not detail, from it. Our first goal was to gain a new way to get our newsletter, CDLInfo, out into the world. Our second goal was to amplify the voices and messages of the accounts it follows. ATI: ATI Google Apps Accessibility Evaluation (ATI Google Apps Accessibility Evaluation)
ATI Google Apps Accessibility Evaluation Access Technology Higher Education Network (ATHEN) has released several evaluations of Google Apps to assess the accessibility of the application suite for a variety of disability types. These evaluations involve a broad array of functional tests that are described in detail within the reports below. On March 20th, the lead author of the ATHEN reports conducted a webinar to discuss key findings and plans for future activities. The recording and slides for this webinar, entitled Report on the Accessibility of Google Apps, are available on the Equal Access to Software and Information (EASI) site. Google has added accessibility improvements to Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Chat, Google Docs, and Google Sites. In the summer of 2010, Peter Mosinskis from CSU Channel Islands assembled a team of approximately fifteen volunteers from seven different CSU campuses and one from the UC system to evaluate the accessibility of Google Apps.
My Favorite Liar. “It is my intention to work into each of my lectures … one lie” One of my favorite professors in college was a self-confessed liar. I guess that statement requires a bit of explanation. The topic of Corporate Finance/Capital Markets is, even within the world of the Dismal Science, (Economics) an exceptionally dry and boring subject matter, encumbered by complex mathematic models and obscure economic theory. What made Dr. K memorable was a gimmick he employed that began with his introduction at the beginning of his first class: “Now I know some of you have already heard of me, but for the benefit of those who are unfamiliar, let me explain how I teach. And thus began our ten-week course. Early in the quarter, the Lie of the Day was usually obvious – immediately triggering a forest of raised hands to challenge the falsehood.
On the days when nobody caught the lie, we all sat in silence, looking at each other as Dr. Brilliant … but what made Dr. “Well – THAT was a lie. By Daniel Goleman. Building the Digital District. Dean Shareski: How To Make Better Teachers. Want to create better teachers? I know how. One word. Blogging. Now before you roll your eyes or accuse me of oversimplifying the very complex issue of teacher evaluation and monitoring, hear me out. I began teaching in 1988. When I discovered blogs almost five years ago, I soon figured out what that term meant.
Dan Meyer, a Mathematics teacher in California writes: ... blogging was the cheapest, most risk-free investment I could have made of my personal time into my job. Thousands of other blogging educators could echo similar words. There's a natural transparency that emerges. Teachers have for years had to fill in a plethora of reports and forms which in essence are accountability papers. So here's my plan. Try that. PS. Buyers-journey. Bringing Scalability to the Classrooms of the Himalayas. About 18 months ago, I came across Lalit Pant, the brain behind the Kojo desktop learning environment, working as a volunteer math teacher at the Himiyota School in India. Lalit, like myself, is a programmer and I discovered we have similar goals: making computer-programming fun, simple and easy to learn. What I really enjoy is that Lalit has committed his time to doing this for children. Lalit spent the first six years of his career as a software engineer in India, most of them at TCS Martin Odersky A Shared Vision "A little while after arriving in India I started teaching at Himjyoti school.
It was a super experience; working with under-privileged but very bright girls was tremendously satisfying and rewarding," recalls Lalit. However, like me, Lalit was dissatisfied with traditional approaches to teaching math and science. Making Math and Programming Fun Lalit discovered the students soon sharpen their skills and progress well beyond the turtles-only point. With Stars In Their Eyes. Stars In Their Eyes: From far left, Mariel Strauch, Tara Jasinski, Ada Ng, and Alix Gerber are trying to design a fresh solution to the eternal problem of cafeteria grub at Cornell--when they're not doodling stars for Fast Company. | Photo by Erin Patrice O'Brien Design For America's Students Want To Change The World By Rick Tetzeli Through Design for America, college students apply their skills to real-world problems.
"It was all about the squishy bell peppers," laughs Tara Jasinski, a recent Cornell University grad who now works in Princeton, New Jersey, as an interior designer at architecture firm HDR. She's recalling the inspiration for the Design for America project she worked on this past spring at her alma mater. "That was all you could get. So Jasinski, along with Ada Ng, Mariel Strauch, and other students led by Alix Gerber, set out to design a solution that would get more fresh food to students and the Ithaca community as a whole. DFA's can-do approach is catching on.